Movie production often begins with a script or screenplay. Movie studios evaluate screenplays and decide which screenplays will be made into movies. Screenplays frequently have only minimal descriptions of dialogue and actions and may require a reader to exercise significant creativity to imagine the screenplay as a finished movie. During the production of a movie, the screenplay may go through several versions such as a “shooting script” that provides technical direction such as camera behavior but is still difficult to visualize.
In order to assist in visualizing how the screenplay will look as a movie, basic illustrations of scenes from the script may be drawn and arranged into a storyboard. Generally this process is performed by drawing individual frames either by a hand or with a graphics program. The storyboard may be combined with a rough soundtrack and rough dialogue to give a better feel for how the final movie will look and sound. Directors, animators, and others involved in the production of a movie may work out screenplay, camera positioning, shot list, timing issues, and the like by editing the storyboard. In some instances, revisions to the storyboard may cause revisions to the script, while revisions once filming has begun may require additional storyboarding, and so forth until the movie is complete.
Effective storyboards help bring a screenplay to life and help identify issues earlier in the production process thus saving money and simplifying later stages of production.